Aileen swallowed. Yet another thing she didn’t want to talk about, but knowing Rebekah, the woman wouldn’t let her leave until she told her every last detail. “We found some?—”
“What time did your ship dock last night?” The sheriff was looking at Gilbert now, a shrewd gleam in his eyes.
“Nearly eleven.” Gilbert didn’t pause before he answered.
Sheriff Cummings scrawled something more on his pad. “Why so late?”
Gilbert shook his head. “It’s not my ship, if that’s what you’re after. Rebekah was anxious to get here, so we took the first ship from Chicago bound for Eagle Harbor.”
“Who owns the ship?”
“My father. I agree that it docked abnormally late though.”
Aileen looked between the two men. They seemed to be speaking about something more than just the ship, but she couldn’t quite grasp what. Why would the sheriff be so interested in the ship in the first place? And what did that have to do with the men she’d seen in the alley?
“Did it make any unusual stops?” The sheriff went back to writing in his notepad again, the breeze from the harbor ruffling his hair so that two other tufts joined the one already lying across his forehead.
Gilbert moved closer to the sheriff, peering over his shoulder to see the notes. “It stopped in Marquette yesterday afternoon, and it took so long to load and unload, I assumed we’d dockthere overnight. But the captain called the crew back around dinner time, and we left for Eagle Harbor.”
Chatter sounded from the direction of the harbor, and a group of sailors turned from Front Street onto Center, likely coming from the same ship the sheriff and Gilbert spoke of. One of the sailors shoved another as they rounded the turn. Then the second sailor shoved the first sailor back, which prompted a larger man to get between the two brawlers and bark something about behaving.
Aileen narrowed her gaze at the sailor on the far side of the group. There was something familiar about the way he moved. Was he one of the men from last night? With his hat pulled down and his face half hidden behind the other sailors, she couldn’t tell.
And what did it matter if he was? It wasn’t as though whoever had been outside last night had committed a crime.
The group passed without even a nod in their direction, likely on their way to the bakery.
The bakery. The ship in the harbor. Oh, what had she been thinking? Or mayhap the better question was, whathadn’tshe been thinking? The morning after a ship docked, they usually had a rush of sailors wanting breakfast, and Ellie hadn’t had a lick of help from her.
“I’m sorry, but I have to get to work before the Oaktons up and fire me.” She dashed off without giving either the sheriff or Rebekah a chance to bid her farewell.
“Miss Brogan, wait.” Isaac glanced up from his notepad where he’d been scrawling Gilbert’s information about the ship docking in Marquette. “I want you to…”Show me the alley.
But she was already halfway down the road.
Rebekah scowled up at him. “You need to be nicer to her. She’s all alone. Don’t you know her brother died last year, and a cousin is the only relation she has in America? And I doubt she’s seen him since she left Chicago.”
Isaac raised his hands, his notepad included. “Be nicer? All I did was ask what she saw last night, and I was perfectly nice while doing so.”
Rebekah’s chin tilted up—evidently her fancy husband hadn’t been able to cure her of such defiant gestures, even if the man should be commended for getting her into a dress. “Then why does Aileen seem so anxious to get away from you?”
Probably for the same reason she was always anxious to get away from him, not that he had a clue what it was. He glanced over to see Miss Brogan rushing down the street, her plain blue skirt swishing about her ankles.
“I didn’t do anything to her, I promise.” Unless asking to court her last winter counted against him. But when she’d said no, he’d left her alone, as simple as that.
Except it really wasn’t simple. Not in a town the size of Eagle Harbor, where he saw her at church every Sunday and where she was always invited to his family’s gatherings on holidays. Not when she was the last thing he thought of most nights before he drifted off to sleep, and the first thing he thought of in the morning.
And the main thing he thought of during lunch.
And walking down the road.
And—
“Then why are you staring after her like that?”
He blinked and forced his gaze away from Miss Brogan pulling open the door to the bakery just ahead of a group of mariners. “Like what?”
Rebekah planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t treat me like I’m an imbecile, Isaac. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
